


Status

by SingingCookie



Series: Reassembling Memories and Respite [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, During Canon, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingCookie/pseuds/SingingCookie
Summary: “C’mon, you need to get out of here. Being here just makes you sad.”“I’m.” She turned her head to the side, her chin lowered as she mumbled, “I can’t be sad, Riku.” She still accepted his offer, touching her fingers to the black gloves he wore.“Then why are you crying?”





	Status

**Author's Note:**

> I am weak to Naminé and Riku interactions. Sue me

_Status…,_ the words shown bright as the pod pulsed in the background, trying to find any minor change to what lay within. The gaps between them grew longer each time. And then finally new words appeared.   _Memory failed to link. Retry?_  Naminé sighed, unaware of how long her breath had hitched between the two messages on the monitor.

“Not again,” she muttered, pulling herself up from the low chair. She pressed her hands to her head, trying to swallow the lump in her throat as she forced herself to breath. She had been working so hard, pushing and pushing as much as she could to progress her goal. But it wasn’t enough. It never was. She shuddered as she took another breath, lowering her hands as she approached the side of the machine.

He was in there—how long had it been now? Several months…at least five? If everything had remained simple, he should have been out already. But of course it couldn’t be simple. The universe had to intentionally throw her own work back in her face. Make it incredibly difficult to keep a promise to her first real friend.

“Naminé.” It was as though she had awoken from a trance, the way she recoiled at another’s voice. There was his best friend. Looking down at her with a frown. He was disappointed, wasn’t he? How could he not be? She was the whole reason his friend was stuck in stasis.

At first, she was relieved that it was him, rather than her “caretaker”; but he couldn’t possibly be happy with her either. So the relief became anguish, she couldn’t bring herself to even look him in the face.

The silence between them was long. It was hard to find the words to say. He couldn’t tell her it was alright, she wouldn’t believe him. He didn’t know if he would believe himself. There was really only one solution.

It took opening and closing his mouth a couple of times before those words could actually get out. When they finally did, they were accompanied by an extended hand. “C’mon, you need to get out of here. Being here just makes you sad.”

“I’m.” She turned her head to the side, her chin lowered as she mumbled, “I can’t be sad, Riku.” She still accepted his offer, touching her fingers to the black gloves he wore.

She always said things like this. Nobodies don’t feel anything. No hearts. No feelings with that said. But that just couldn’t be true. DiZ often repeated the same notions. But…observing her over the course of these several months…Riku knew it couldn’t be. No matter how much they insisted.

Riku’s hand squeezed hers as he guided them toward the exit, his own head low. “Then why are you crying?” He received no reply other than her unsteady breathing just behind him. He didn’t mind, it was fair that she didn’t know what to say. She could not seem to wrap her head around the idea that she might not be as disconnected from ‘real people’ as DiZ tried to lead her to believe. So he didn’t push the subject further, only continuing to lead the way.

He came to a stop once they had entered the foyer, jerking his head briefly toward the opposite side of the stairway. “You should go grab one of your notebooks. One that doesn’t have anything related to all this.” He could feel her tense up and so released her hand as he continued, “And meet me on the ground floor.”

She did not question, only quietly agreed before doing as she was told. It took a few minutes—perhaps finding a notebook like he described was difficult—until she joined him at the bottom of the stairs, clasping one along with the crayons she had been given. “Alright, let’s go.”

She seemed to hesitate as he led the way toward the front doors. “Um, I’m sorry but…where exactly are we going?” He placed a hand on one of the doors, shoving it open and standing in front of it as Naminé walked through, attempting to shield her eyes from the light. It gave her step a slight stutter, and she paused once she actually stepped out to look back and await an answer.

“Out,” he replied as he moved to lead the way again. Perhaps more curt than he had been intending. In all honesty, he felt as though he had sort of forgotten how to talk to people. He and Naminé didn’t talk all too much. And DiZ wasn’t exactly the best conversationalist either. Aside from them, the only one he had spoken to was Xion. Just that one time. Maybe it was best that he clarify just a bit. “We just need to get you out of that place for a while. It’s not healthy.”

She continued to follow him but nonetheless noted, “That doesn’t really answer my question, you know.”

He was about to glance back at her, he could have sworn he could practically hear a small smile in that, something highly unusual. “Oh.” But he came to a stop instead, and she bumped into him, unprepared for the sudden halt. “I almost forgot.” He reached behind his head, his fingers moving to find the ends of the black material covering his eyes.

“What are you doing?” He could hear her sandals crunching the foliage under their feet, as she moved to his side. She sounded concerned.

He managed to untie the knot and stuffed the strip of cloth into his pocket. “It’s not exactly normal for people to walk around blindfolded in town.”

Only after saying so did he slowly open his eyes, cringing at how intense his surroundings were. It wasn’t like being on the islands: the reflective sand, the ocean, the clear blue of the sky. Here, it was only the deep greens of the foliage, the warm browns of the tree trunks, and the gentle orange of the near perpetual sunset… The colors were so much more muted. But after only seeing the black of that cloth for several months…it was a stark adjustment.

“Riku?”

“Sorry, I need a second,” he started, his eyes blinking rapidly as though that might help somehow. “It’s been a while. Can’t guide you if I can’t see, right?” She reassured him that it was fine and he chanced a glance at her. Perhaps a mistake. If the subdued scenery was blinding to him, it was nothing compared to her against that very backdrop. The white of her dress, the flaxen hair; she was the sun, and he had to look away from something so bright.

He cleared his throat as he pressed on leading them through the demolished courtyard. “Anyway, I don’t have an exact place in mind. But I’ll figure it out as we go.”

Naminé hummed in reply as she fell into step behind him. Walking through the woods was much better the shade of sunset coming through the leaves helping with the adjustment. “So, blindfolds aren’t normal?”

“What?” Did she actually think that? He supposed it would make sense, as he was one of the few normal people she had interacted with. This would also be her first journey into town also. He couldn’t help glancing back at her, an explanation on the tip of his tongue. And then he saw it, a quiver of a smile that could only mean she was totally messing with him. He expelled a breath, just a hint of a laugh in it. She was joking. “Yeah, well, I like to follow my own path…”

Just being outside was already working wonders on her.

They approached the gap in the wall that separated the town from the woods, and he wondered, “What kind of thing would you like to see?” That might help him decide where their destination should be. Unfortunately, she responded that she didn’t know. It figured… Well, she was prone to drawing. Maybe that could help. Somewhere high up, but not enough to where she couldn’t easily see things or people to sketch. “Alright, I think I have an idea.”

He picked up the pace as the entered the tram common, following the tram’s path toward the southeast. She started to ask a lot of questions as they continued. Why did that part of the ground look different? What were all these buildings for? What was the tram for exactly? Sometimes, it really did surprise him just how little she was allowed to see of the real world. He answered each question as they came, leading them up a staircase. When he finished explaining that a tram was for transportation, she asked, “Could we ride it later?”

“If it’s still going, maybe,” he replied, explaining that it usually stopped at a certain time. “How’s this?” He came to a stop as they reached the edge of a rooftop, which gave a clear vantage point of the shopping section of the common. He watched as people sifted through the open area, going from business to business. “I know it’s not like going to an actual place but…” The girl had sat down, her legs curled up beside her and flipping her notebook open with a crayon already held aloft. Well, that was a relief at least.

He sat down beside her, his legs hanging over the edge of the building. Seeing all of these people…it reminded him of travelling into the city on the islands with his friends. Those days felt so long ago now… It didn’t help that chunks of his memory were so fuzzy; but that was bound to happen, so many of those memories were tied to Sora and not to mention Kairi. Kairi’s presence helped to solidify them as real events, but the specifics of them were more unclear.

He didn’t do much as she drew. It was mostly people or cloud watching. Sometimes, he tried to help put a coherent memory of his friend group. Younger years were easier. Maybe because that was where she had started her work. Around the time Kairi became a best friend of theirs, that was where things got foggier. Why did the Organization even do this?

“Does DiZ know you’re letting me out today?”

That snapped him out of his recollection, glancing back to finding her scribbling color into one of her doodles.  “I don’t really talk to him,” he admitted, leaning on his palms and looking toward the sky. “Unless it’s necessary.”

“Why’s that?”

He hesitated to answer. “I don’t like him much.” It sounded even worse than he thought hearing it outloud. Her crayon stopped moving against the paper and she began to ask another question. He already knew what it was. “I’m here for Sora. Not him.”

“Does he know that?”

“Probably on some level.” DiZ had always been annoyingly perceptive of Riku’s motivations after all. “Don’t worry about him. If he finds out, I’ll take the blame. It was my idea anyway. Besides…” He gave a laugh, thinking of everything he had seen of the man. “What’s he gonna do? Ground me?”

“No,” she said as she turned to another page, and starting another picture. “Maybe take your blindfold.”

He quirked his head in her direction, there it was again. “Was that another joke?” Her smile grew a little when he asked that, and he said with a chuckle, “You might need to get fresh air more often. You seem happier out here.”

“Maybe.”


End file.
